A Special Date
by cosmo-queen
Summary: Mac and Stella have some coffee and learn some things about one another.


DISCLAIMER: CSI:NY is yet another of those things that I wish I owned, but do not.

xOx

**__**

A SPECIAL DATE

xOx

Stella Bonasera was beginning to regret ever having asked Mac Taylor out for dinner. The team had worked on a particularly stressful case, the sort which always led to sleep deprivation and unfulfilled appetites. While she couldn't force everyone to get a decent night's sleep, Stella felt it was her duty to ensure everyone arrived home properly fed, at least. And by everyone, she really only meant Mac.

She was pretty sure the only reason he had come at all was because Danny and Aiden had threatened to stay outside his office and sing karaoke loudly and off-key if he insisted on remaining inside his office, as he usually did after long cases. It was true, when the two younger CSI's collaborated on karaoke songs, the result could be painful. But catching Mac Taylor in one of his bad moods was even more so. And Mac was certainly in a bad mood. He hadn't cracked a smile at Danny's "amazing spoon balancing abilities" or at Aiden's "I-Can-Make-The-Most-Ordinary-Dish-On-The-Menu-Sound-Like-The-Most-Exotic-Dish-You've-Ever-Eaten". It wasn't surprising though, he hadn't cracked a smile once that entire day.

Being seated opposite the disagreeable detective, Stella noticed a sudden change in his reaction. And it wasn't a good one. Danny's balance had faltered and his spoon had flown into Mac's face. He and Aiden were trying not to laugh, but unfortunately for them, their boss failed to see any humour in the situation.

"You're two grown adults, yet the pair of you insist on acting like children. You're supposed to be responsible CSI's, though right now, you'd be better suited as buffoons in a circus. Stop acting so immature, and just grow up," Mac burst out angrily, his usually quiet voice attracting a few stares from surrounding tables since it wasn't so quiet in this case.

An awkward silence ensued. Mac turned his attention to his coffee, while Stella darted her eyes over towards Danny and Aiden. They were looking at each other with confused expressions upon their faces, and when they caught Stella glancing at them, they raised their eyebrows in the hope of receiving some telepathic answer regarding what had gotten into their boss. She gave them a sympathetic smile. They weren't used to their serious boss being so sour, but Stella knew something had to be bothering him.

"I think it's best we clowns left the serious one to drink his coffee in peace," Danny said abruptly. Stella could detect a trace of hurt in the young man's voice. He stood up, nodding at Stella and glancing one last time towards Mac, whose attention had not swayed from his coffee cup. Aiden said a quick goodbye, but he did not respond to that either.

Stella sighed. So much for dinner. Instead, she now had to endure Mac's steely silence, even though she had done nothing wrong. But that was okay. It wasn't the first time, and she was absolutely certain it wouldn't be the last time. But if anyone could give the New York criminalist a run for his money, it was Stella Bonasera. She proceeded to sip her cup of coffee.

About ten minutes after Danny and Aiden had left, Mac spoke, though his eyes remained focussed on his coffee. "You don't have to stay with me, you know."

Stella snorted. "I'm not here solely on your account, Mac. I paid good money for this coffee and I intend to enjoy it."

"Of course." There was a pause. Mac finally lifted his head to look Stella in the eyes. He sighed. They were sparkling with ferocity, which meant that he was in for it. "Out with it, Bonasera." There was no denying the inevitable.

Now, it was Stella's turn to pretend that a cup of swirling brown liquid was engrossing. "I don't know, Mac, you seem pretty pissed off. Do I really want to suffer the humiliation of having my head bitten off in public?"

It was pointless to keep staring at her coffee, so Stella looked up to see that Mac was giving her a dark look. This amused her and she smirked in response. "That may scare off Danny and Aiden, but it sure as hell doesn't work on me. You're just not convincing with the whole bad guy routine."

"I can be convincing," Mac retaliated.

In a firm and questioning tone, Stella replied, "Sure. If you're such a bad guy, look me in the eye and tell me you haven't spent the last ten minutes berating yourself for being an ass, and wondering how you're going to apologise to Danny and Aiden the next time you see them."

Mac chuckled. Stella Bonasera did not beat around the bush. She was right, he had regretted his words to his two co-workers almost as soon as they'd left his mouth. Everyone was bound to be pissed at him, including himself. He tried to redeem himself. "I didn't mean any of it."

"That's not the point, Mac. How many cases have we investigated where the perp didn't intend for the victim to die?" On noticing Mac's eyebrows shoot up in surprise and slight hurt at being compared with a criminal, she decided to soften her analogy. "I know you didn't mean any of it, I know. But then why say it?" Before her partner could answer the question, she continued, "I'm pretty sure I know already. It's got to do with a date, doesn't it?"

The bluntness of the question combined with Stella's insinuation made Mac blink. It was a couple of seconds before he could get his mouth working again. "Excuse me?"

However, the witty remark he was expecting Stella to respond with failed to materialise. To Mac's surprise, she had a rather grave expression on her face. He noticed that her attention was no longer focussed on him, but rather on some unknown object across the street. Her eyes were no longer fiery, but slightly wistful.

"You know something I really hate, Mac?" Stella regained her focus and looked directly at the New York detective, waiting for an answer.

"Not including all the scumbags who keep us in our jobs?" Mac smiled, remembering the countless times the curly-haired woman in front of him had ranted and raved about the various types of criminals in society and how they made her feel sick.

Stella offered a small smile in return. "Yeah, not including them. Promise me you won't laugh if I tell you."

"I promise," was Mac's brisk reply. And he meant it. Stella wasn't the sort of person who revealed much about herself, while he wasn't the sort of person who asked questions regarding matters that really didn't concern him. It meant though, that on the rare occasion she was willing to disclose something, he was eager to find out what that was. If he blew it by laughing at her, he knew that a potentially interesting conversation would be over before it started.

"Calendars. I hate calendars," Stella paused and looked at Mac. He wasn't laughing, he wasn't smiling, he was simply listening and she was thankful for it. Stella was sure she would've felt more hurt if he had laughed at her now than if he had reprimanded her earlier like he had done with Danny and Aiden. She had always felt vulnerable telling people personal details about herself, and avoided it at all costs. Seeing, however, that she had Mac's attention, Stella continued, reminding herself to keep a steady voice. This train of thought had often led to tears in the past.

"My room in the orphanage I moved into after my parents died was nice. It had a comfortable bed, a desk with a lamp on it, these lovely antique drawers and some flimsy curtains with teddy-bears on them. The only thing I hated was the calendar that hung opposite my bed. It was the first thing my eyes focussed on when I woke up, and the last thing I saw when I went to sleep. It was okay in the mornings, there wasn't enough time to look at it. But at night, the street-light would filter through the window so it would always take me ages to fall asleep. And the light just so happened to illuminate the calendar. So I would stare at it for hours. Sort of. Once I focussed on that day's date, I'd start thinking- it was this time last year that my mother hosted that dinner party where I mistook my neighbour's scotch for Coke. Five years ago, we would've been driving upstate for that two-week vacation my parents had been wanting to have for a year. If my dad was still alive, it would've been his birthday today. At first, I remembered so much, down to the most I insignificant detail. Over time, that became harder to do. But I wouldn't let myself go to sleep unless I remembered something. That's when I began to really hate that calendar. It was a constant reminder that I should be remembering what happened or what could've happened on any particular day. Though I was beginning to feel as though it was natural to contemplate moving on with life, that calendar wouldn't let me." Stella paused when she saw a faint smile forming on Mac's lips. "Stupid, isn't it," she mumbled.

"No, Stella, it's not that. It just occurred to me that you must have really enjoyed disposing of that calendar when the year was over."

Stella couldn't help but laugh. "No, I ripped it to pieces long before the year was over. See, one night, I racked my brains out but couldn't even make up a special memory. I think I only managed to fall asleep because of the headache I got from crying so hard. For the next week, because I was angry with myself, I was such a bitch to everyone in the orphanage. But my conscience got the better of me. Why be angry with them? I felt so ashamed. They weren't the ones who were starting to forget about my parents. But I convinced myself that the calendar was partly to blame, so I tore it to shreds. The way I saw it, if there was no calendar, I'd be less likely to feel mad at myself and therefore, more likely to treat everyone at the orphanage with the respect they deserved."

Ever the scientist, Mac enquired, "Did your reasoning turn out to be correct?" He was finding Stella's confessions very interesting indeed.

"Damn straight," Stella answered happily, as if she'd ripped up the calendar only a few minutes before. "And you know what? That night, I remembered all these lovely memories. I didn't have to force anything, they just came to me. And I've become so sidetracked that I've forgotten why I started to tell you all of this in the first place."

"I was sort of hoping that would happen," Mac chuckled.

Stella fixed him with a look. "Lucky for you, I've just remembered. Your behaviour today- silent and detached one minute, then moody and snappy for no reason the next, reminded me of myself all those years ago. So I came to the conclusion that today was probably a significant day for you and Claire in the past and you felt bad because you didn't remember why it was significant straight away. Or maybe you simply got up on the wrong side of bed and I've just made a complete ass out of myself with all my babble."

Silence ensued. Stella focussed her attention on her now empty coffee cup, feeling, for some reason, too nervous to look him in the face in case she had been wrong about why he had been in a bad mood throughout the day. Besides, she was all flustered and though the lengthy silence was now beginning to worry her, it gave her the time she needed to regain her composure.

Mac felt he should say something, but he had truly found himself rendered speechless. This woman's insight was amazing. He actually felt slightly intimidated at just how accurate it was. It was true, today had been a special day for him and Claire. But that was only half the reason he couldn't seem to string sentences together. The silence had given him time to reflect on everything Stella had said, not just her analysis of him. For a guarded person, she had shared a mountain of personal information with him today. Once his brain had been able to register the depth of what she was revealing to him, he found himself gaining a whole new respect for her. The last three and a half years of his life had been full of pain and grief. A pain and grief which Stella had lived with for over thirty years. He had always known that she was a strong person, but until today, he had not known just how strong she was. And now, he felt guilty. How many times had he expected Stella to put up with him while he coped with his loss. Too many to count. Yet, he had never really bothered to be there for her on the days that she coped with her losses.

"Mac, I'm a big girl, if I was wrong, I can deal..."

Stella's voice registered in his brain and his head shot up. She was now looking at him with a curious expression on her face. He had probably been silent for a bit too long. However, Mac found that his mouth was able to form words again, and since there was a lot he wanted to say, he decided to cut his friend off.

"There are three things I have to say. First and most importantly, I'm sorry." He knew he owed her more of an explanation, but those two words had to come first.

The answer took Stella by surprise. "What for?"

Now able to put some of his previous thoughts into words, Mac continued. "For having to put up with me, not only today, but pretty much every day during the last three and a half years."

"I've had to put up with worse." Stella joked, trying to dismiss the whole thing. She could sense that it was Mac's turn to pour his heart out, and it made her anxious. He didn't do this very often, and the heavy subject matter didn't make things any easier. Nevertheless, she knew she had to try, and with a softer tone to her voice, she continued, "And in my books, it's called sticking by a friend when they're having a tough time. Seriously, Mac, you lost your wife, you don't have to apologise for grieving for her. If we ever seemed frustrated with you, it's because we wanted to comfort you but you wouldn't let us, not because we thought you were carrying on."

Mac realised that his friend was trying to make him feel better, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he had let people down with his behaviour. Claire had never liked people who insisted on feeling sorry for themselves. Wasn't that what he'd been doing for the last three years? Finally, he replied, "I know you'll just say that everyone has their different way of coping, but I wish now that I hadn't made everyone else suffer because of my loss. I expected the team to stop having fun. Today only proves I still expect that. And it's not fair, is it?"

Stella's face softened. Mac Taylor was having the epiphany she had had many years ago and in a way, she felt proud of him. He had been struggling to come to terms with all that had happened to him for so long, and Stella was pretty sure he was beginning to see that moving on is natural, not a crime.

"No, it's not fair. But don't feel guilty, Mac, I think it takes a while for most people who lose someone they love to realise that, simply because losing someone we love is never fair for us. And believe it or not, it took me a long time to comprehend that."

"You were a child, that's understandable. I'm a grown man, I should've realised that earlier," Mac retorted.

"It doesn't make a difference whether you're a man, woman or child. Losing someone is never easy and there's no equations or formulas that we can rely on to help us."

Mac glanced at his partner before saying, "And yet, Stella, you seem to have everything figured out. I look at you and see this tower of strength and wish that I could say the same for myself."

Stella watched with sadness as Mac's shoulders slumped. He looked utterly defeated, and she cursed herself for not pushing this conversation before. If she had done so, perhaps she would've spared him all the guilt and anguish that had obviously been building up inside him over the years. At least it was out now.

"Mac, you've had a tenth of the time I've had to figure things out. Which, by the way, you never truly do. You just learn things over time. You learn, for example, that hiding your grief from people doesn't make you strong. It only means you're the sort of person who prefers to go home and cry themselves to sleep."

As this confession sunk in, Mac slowly looked up to glance at Stella. He was pretty sure she was trying to imply that she wasn't as strong as she made out to be but he didn't know what to say to that. She'd always be a strong woman in his eyes. He decided, then, to change the subject somewhat and answer her original question.

"You were right, though. About the date thing. I woke up today feeling that there was something I should be remembering but couldn't. All the way to the lab, I kept thinking that it must have something to do with the case. Perhaps there was a piece of evidence that I had to re-examine. It was only when I sat down in my office that I remembered that today was the day that Claire and I first met, fifteen years ago. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten, that I was dishonouring her like that. I'm still angry with myself, but I realise now that my anger affected people that didn't deserve it."

Stella knew that it not been easy for Mac to admit all that he had in the last fifteen minutes. She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. "Don't beat yourself up, Mac. You've arrived at the ultimate problem. You feel as though you should start moving forwards with your life, but then a day like today comes along and you berate yourself for thinking that because it means you might forget some things about Claire."

"I'm not even going to ask how you've managed to read my mind, Stella," Mac replied, with a hint of a smile on his face. It had been hard for him to take part in this conversation at first, but now, it was taking a weight off his shoulders. If Stella could provide an answer to the question he had asked himself so many times in the past, he felt that he would finally be able to move on without forever feeling guilty.

"What do I do then?"

Stella found it odd to be giving Mac advice. It was a complete role reversal. She was so used to him being the one offering her words of wisdom. It had led her to believe that Mac knew pretty much everything there was to know. She felt honoured, then, to be offering her own inspiration.

"Accept the fact that over time, you will forget things, Mac. But don't feel guilty, because sometimes, completely out of the blue, you'll remember something you'd thought was lost forever. And those memories will make you realise that the people we love can never truly be forgotten."

For the second time that night, Mac was rendered speechless. After a minute had gone by, he was finally able to say something in return. "Stella, that's beautiful."

Mac was looking at her intently, and though she felt flattered, things had become way too serious. "Perhaps I should give up being a CSI and go write Hallmark cards instead. What do you say, Mac?" she asked, in a teasing tone.

To her relief, Mac continued with the light-hearted tone. "Not before you've made me a couple of "I'm Sorry" cards that I can give to Aiden and Danny."

Stella smiled. "If you shout me another coffee, then you might just have yourself a deal."

"Done and done," Mac replied, returning the smile. "You know, all this talk about calendars and dates has reminded me of that Christmas when Danny asked us what sort of present he could get Aiden, and Flack suggested a calendar. And I remember Danny asking you if you thought it was a good idea, and you gave him this dark look, though you claimed it was from the mustard in your hot dog. It wasn't though, was it?"

"You remember that?" Stella laughed. "You're right, the mustard was perfectly fine."

"The things I can get Stella Bonasera to admit," Mac chuckled.

"Don't flatter yourself, Mac Taylor. Why do you think I compared you to a criminal earlier on? So you would get defensive and start to talk," the curly-haired woman retorted.

"You're quite the sneak, Stella."

"I don't deny it."

Their coffees arrived then and a comfortable silence fell over them as they proceeded to drink, each CSI in a far better mood now than when they had arrived. Both of them had had things they wanted to get off their chests, and though they'd both been reluctant to talk about these things, confessing the matters to one another had done each of them a world of good. Stella realised that they should do this more than once every three and a half years.

"Mac, I think we should have a date," she blurted out before she had clearly thought the specifics of the idea through. It was only when he started choking on his coffee that Stella realised she also hadn't phrased her idea very well.

"What?" Mac asked, an incredulous look on his face.

Stella burst out laughing, realising the interpretation he had made of her proposal. "No, no, no, let me explain. I think today was good therapy for us both. And it's the sort of therapy that we can afford. I reckon we should set aside a day each year where we get some coffee and just have a heart-to-heart. It doesn't necessarily have to be serious, we can just reveal something that we've never told each other before. What do you say?"

Mac tilted his head to one side and sighed in mock-consideration. After a pause, he looked at Stella and, with a grin, replied, "I guess it's a date then."

Stella rolled her eyes. "You've got a year to work on those lame jokes, Mac." Suddenly aware of the time, she finished her coffee and proceeded to stand up. "Anyway, it's time I headed home, boss. Try to eat something and get more than one hour's sleep, will you?"

She noticed Mac's expression had turned somewhat serious. "You're a good friend, Stella. Thankyou for everything. I mean it." And from the genuine tone in his voice, Stella had no doubts that he did.

"Anytime. Remember, if there's something you want to get off your mind, you don't have to wait for one day of the year to tell me about it. I'm here for you every day of the year."

"I'll remember that. Bye, Stella."

"See you later, Mac."

Stella was just about to walk out of the cafe when a thought struck her. She turned back and walked over to her boss, who had managed to find a newspaper to read in the minute that she had left him.

"You said there were three things you wanted to tell me before. To my knowledge, you only told me two out of three. What was the third thing?"

Mac folded the newspaper in half and laughed. "That's why you're meant to be a CSI, Stella. You pick up on the little things. I was just going to say that I was honoured to listen to your babble, as you called it."

Stella shook her head and after saying a final goodbye, walked out of the cafe, smiling. Though coffee hardly constituted as a meal, inviting Mac out to dinner had been a good idea after all.

xOx

AUTHOR'S NOTE: So we've only received six episodes of CSI:NY in Oz, but I like this instalment, and when the idea for this popped into my head one night, I had to turn it into a full-fledged fic. And finally, it's done. I hope it's in character, I hope you enjoyed it, and who knows, I may write some more fics for this show in the future :)


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